You know shoddy: an adjective meaning cheap and likely poorly made.
But did you know that before it became a popular descriptor, shoddy
was first coined as a noun? In the early nineteenth century, shoddy
was the name given to a new textile material made from reclaimed
wool. Shoddy was, in fact, one of the earliest forms of industrial
recycling as old rags and fabric clippings were ground into
"devil's dust" and respun to be used in the making of suits, army
uniforms, carpet lining, mattress stuffing, and more. In Shoddy,
Hanna Rose Shell takes readers on a vivid ride beginning in West
Yorkshire's Heavy Woollen District and its "shoddy towns," and
traveling to the United States, the third world, and waste dumps,
textile labs, and rag shredding factories, in order to unravel the
threads of this story and its long history. Since the time of its
first appearance, shoddy had become both pervasive and politically
and culturally controversial on multiple levels. The use of the
term "virgin" wool--still noticeable today in the labels on our
sweaters--thus emerged as an effort by the wool industry to counter
shoddy's appeal: to make shoddy seem shoddy. Public health experts,
with encouragement from the wool industry, worried about sanitation
and disease--how could old clothes be disinfected? As well, the
idea of wearing someone else's old clothes so close to your own
skin was discomforting in and of itself. Could you sleep peacefully
knowing that your mattress was stuffed with dead soldiers'
overcoats? Over time, shoddy the noun was increasingly used as an
adjective that, according to Shell, captured a host of personal,
ethical, commercial, and societal failings. Introducing us to many
richly drawn characters along the way, Shell reveals an interwoven
tale of industrial espionage, political infighting, scientific
inquiry, ethnic prejudices, and war profiteering. By exploring a
variety of sources from political and literary texts to fabric
samples and old military uniforms, antique and art photographs and
political cartoons, medical textbooks, and legal cases, Shell
unspools the history of shoddy to uncover the surprising journey
that individual strands of recycled wool - and more recently a
whole range of synthetic fibers from nylon to Kevlar - may take
over the course of several lifetimes. Not only in your garments and
blankets, but under your rug, in your mattress pads, the peculiar
confetti-like stuffing in your mailing envelopes, even the
insulation in your walls. The resulting fabric is at once rich and
sumptuous, and cheap and tawdry--and likely connected to something
you are wearing right now. After reading, you will never use the
word shoddy or think about your clothes, or even the world around
you, the same way again.
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